Correction: the spelling on T.O.'s publicist's name is Kim Etheredge. That needs to be cleared up so she can get full blame for saying that her client has "25 million reasons'' not to kill himself. Thanks, that puts everything in perspective. Too bad for you losers making 40K a year - you, if you want to off yourselves, I understand, but not if you're rich like my guy.

On the other hand, I can't blame her for openly questioning what was in the police report, because right now, it deserves questioning. Again, now that this thing has gone completely off the tracks and is taken the nation by storm (for better or worse), a little clarification from the police and/or paramedics is in order. There has to be some reason it was written up in that report that she (1) told them he was depressed, (2) tried to take pills out of his mouth and (3) had no clue about the location of the missing 35 pills. Again, at best, it looks like a terrible misunderstanding. At worst, someone's not telling the truth. Whether it's her and T.O., or the police, it's not good either way.

Still, what does it say when both the agent (Drew Rosenhaus) and publicist (Ms. Etheredge) turn into instant celebs and have an indelible media moment while working for the same guy? You'd think that would happen more often, but it's really only happened to T.O. Can we readily identify the agent and/or publicist for, say, Whitney and Bobby, or Britney Spears, or Kobe, or O.J.? Somehow, they don't get sucked into a media whirlpool, but T.O.'s reps do. I don't actually know what to say about that.

The bottom line is this: less than 24 hours after being rushed to the hospital and allegedly engendering conversation about depression, overdose and suicide, the man sat in front of a row of cameras and a room full of reporters looking as if he's just gotten his ankle iced down after twisting it in practice. This is so fishy, I need to go buy tartar sauce just to watch it all.

But I will have it all dissected and analyzed for you by tomorrow morning's paper. Suuuuuuure I will.

P.S. Today's luckiest athlete on earth is the Charger's Terrence Kiel, who should be thanking his maker that T.O. did all of this on the same day that news broke about Kiel's arrest, at the Chargers' facility, for trafficking COUGH SYRUP. Four days before he was supposed to come to town to play the Ravens. Runner-up: the Bad News Bengals' Odell Thurman.

Said it before and I'll say it again: and it's the NBA that's got the image problem?

Posted by David Steele at 6:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

Okay, everybody, say it with me ... "What the - ?''

It would be great if everything was cleared up by T.O.'s press conference about an hour ago - but it's only worse. It's clear now that the one set of people that is absolutely necessary to lend at least some clarity to all of this, is the paramedics, cops and whoever else interacted with him at his house and at the hospital last night. The stories T.O. and his publicist, Kim Etheridge, told a little while ago, and the ones in that police report, are so far apart, someone has to bridge that with the truth. That's not to say that only one of them is telling the truth, but at the very least, a serious misunderstanding has taken place, and it's not even clear who misunderstood whom.

T.O. did make a very good point: if he had, in fact, taken 35 pills at one time - and he said it was hydrocodone pills, which I've never had specific experience with, but I've taken Tylenol with codeine and it doesn't take much of that to make you pretty incoherent - he would not only not be giving a press conference this afternoon, he wouldn't even be out of the hospital. He might not even be with us right now. It's not like taking 35 Advils. That's worth pointing out to refute those who understandably are saying that today has been nothing but a long series of cover stories by T.O.'s people. Overdoses of any kind don't seem to be things that get cleared up that quickly, and the same would seem to go for anything that even hints at suicide.

Here's the wire story. ESPN.com also has video of the press conference with T.O. and Etheridge, as well as Bill Parcells, who once again wasted everybody's time in telling us what he didn't know. You have to wonder, though, how many coaches would go without having spoken to one of his best players in the first 18 hours after he was rushed to the hospital for a possible overdue/suicide attempt. Think Brian Billick would not have seen or spoken to Ray Lewis for 18 hours if that had happened here? Think he might have gotten to the hospital about 30 seconds after the ambulance did? That's all irrelevant, of course, in light of that fact that a player's life seemed to be in peril, but still.

UPDATE: Thanks to reader Jason for taking note of the typo in the above paragraph. I'd like to think that my writing "a possible overdue/suicide attempt'' was NOT a Freudian slip. That, of course, should read "possible overdose/suicide attempt.''

Posted by David Steele at 4:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

Terrell Owens was scheduled to speak to reporters at his home right now (1:30 p.m. ET) - but ESPN just reported that it's been pushed back to 3:30 ET at the Cowboys facility near Dallas. That would be an hour after the regular Cowboys press conference with Bill Parcells. All the ESPN networks (except, it appears, Classic) are going live with this and look to be staying with it all day.

Deion Sanders reportedly is at Owens' home, which is extremely interesting on many levels, including this: Sanders has admitted, in his book, that he once tried to kill himself, and the incident led to his becoming a born-again Christian.

The latest - coming from various ESPN reporters but also on the Fort Worth Star Telegram's site - is that the woman who called 911 and, according to the police report, tried to keep him from taking the pain medication, is his publicist, and she is now saying it was never a suicide attempt at all.

It looks as if MSNBC is going to carry some of the press conferences today also; it's in the middle of a lengthy report now. Don't be surprised if some of it pops up on some of the other all-news networks too.

Posted by David Steele at 1:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

The Dallas Morning News website appears to be a pretty good source for up-to-the-minute news on T.O. Just a suggestion: keep an eye out on what their newest columnist, Jean-Jacques Taylor, has to say at some point. J.J. just got the column gig this month, replacing Kevin Blackistone (who took a buyout and left the paper), and covered the Cowboys for several years before that.

Also: the Cowboys blog on the site is knocking stuff out steadily. It just reported that T.O. is back home (as far as anyone can tell, at the location the paramedics took him from last night), and Drew Rosenhaus is also there. According to the blog, a man at T.O.'s residence answered a question of whether T.O. was all right, and he nodded "yes.''

Meanwhile, the first reply to the first posting, from Tim, mentioned manic depression. At least two friends I've talked to this morning have suggested the exact same thing. It sure makes sense. What we don't know about Owens away from the cameras is almost unlimited.

Posted by David Steele at 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

ESPN and other outlets are putting out word of a report on a television station in Dallas - which was based on a police report in Dallas - that Terrell Owens was trying to kill himself when he was rushed to the emergency room last night.

Here's the original report on WFAA's website. There's also a link to the police report, which says, in part, that Owens admitted to some official (if any experts in emergency response lingo is reading this, give us a hand with some of these abbreviations) that he was "depressed,'' and that when asked "if he was attempting to harm himself,'' he said yes. He also apparently admitted that he had taken the remaining 35 pills in his painkillers prescriptions, and that whoever was with him tried to take the two pills she saw him put in his mouth, out of his mouth.

ESPN is reporting that Dallas police officials plan a press conference sometime today. The Cowboys also have just announced a briefing for this afternoon.

For what it's worth (probably not much), T.O.'s SportsCentury special on ESPN Classic debuted last week. I was interviewed for it last fall, because I had written about him when he was with the 49ers, and many of the questions and answers were about whether a lot of his outlandish actions and statements were rooted more in insecurity and a serious case of poor self-esteem when he was growing up.

None of this might have anything to do with what happened last night. Just putting it out there, and fully willing to dismiss it as it relates to this.

Posted by David Steele at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

Still trying to decide whether to take to the streets with your fellow disgruntled Orioles fans and try to Free the Birds in this afternoon's protest?

Think about this:

There has been some hesitation by some to attend because of fear it might be a big publicity stunt by the radio station sponsoring it. That's not a good enough reason. What's the biggest fan revolt you can remember from recent years? Most likely the Detroit Lions Angry Fan March, or the Millen Man March, from last December.

That protest was started and heavily publicized by a Detroit radio station that plastered its call letters all over everything related to it, and the station hosts were in the front of the march from the beginning. And not only did it draw a huge turnout, and not only did it attract nationwide coverage, it did so without anyone coming away thinking they got used by the station.

The greatest outcome of that march is that a previously nondescript franchise, teetering on irrelevancy and not normally mentioned as the No. 1 most godawful organization in the league, got the entire country talking about how inept it is, because the fans decided they themselves had to do it.

Sound like any franchise we know?

Meanwhile, in studying the Lions fans protest, it's obvious that Orioles fans have a long way to go. Besides the page set up on the station's website, where's the outpouring of online grassroots outrage? Like, for instance, firemillen.com. Or firemillen.net. Or this Fire Millen MySpace page. Matt Millen has only been running the Lions into the ground for five years, and his detractors are splattered all over cyberspace. Are you telling me that after nine years, Orioles fans can't match that? I could be wrong, could be totally missing something, but a Google search of "Angelos'' combined with "fire'', "dump'', "sack'', "can'' and similar terms - even "sell'' - turned up nothing.

This isn't an endorsement or a call to action. Just saying: if you want to do this, do it right.

Posted by David Steele at 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
                    

Once again, People magazine is there to give the hungry sports fan the news it has to have. Carmelo Anthony, of West Baltimore, the Nuggets and the U.S. national team, is going to be a father.

Of course, since it broke in People, the expectant mother, Carmelo's fiancee, LaLa Vazquez, gets top billing. Come home with a bronze medal and suddenly you're playing second banana. They've been engaged for nearly two years but have not set a date yet.

In other NBA news, the Spurs' Tony Parker and Eva Longoria are still an item. Training camp opens in less than two weeks, and People is all over it.

Posted by David Steele at 2:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

I'm thinking everybody's not quite as buzzed this morning as they were a week ago. And we probably contributed to some of it - or at least I did. Then again, count your blessings. You could be a Raiders fan this morning and have to read this, from the San Francisco Chronicle. Or the Oakland Tribune. Or the San Jose Mercury News. Or have to hear this from the network commentators, as reported in the Mercury News. See, you Ravens fans think you're persecuted and that the whole nation is against your team. First of all, you've never had a season like this; not even last season brought the sort of scorn from all over the country the way the Raiders' 0-2 start has gotten everyone's engines running. Second of all, you could take lessons from Raiders fans in paranoia and conspiracy theories. Nobody is as convinced that everybody is against them as Raiders fans are. Take my word for it, from being there. In fact, I fully expect Raiders fans to find this post and unload on me about it.

In other words, all things considered, things are looking pretty rosy around here.

Meanwhile ...

* You could also be a Redskins fan. High comedy on Comcast's postgame show last night, when all four studio hosts took turns piling on Mark Brunell. One took it to another level, asking Comcast's on-site reporter to tack one last question onto her interview with Clinton Portis: did he or any of his teammates think the Skins should change quarterbacks? Portis eluded that one like an onrushing linebacker.

* Brian Billick did set us all up yesterday for today's 3 p.m. press conference at the Castle. He deferred every question about the offense until today. It's showtime.

* Samari Rolle didn't seem the least bit concerned about his sprained right foot after the game; no hesitation in saying he should play this week in Cleveland.

* The three running backs aren't exactly pounding holes in opposing defense lines so far, but two encouraging aspects about them: 1) they aren't even hinting at any tension among them about who gets how many touches, and 2) for two straight games, they've produced a long, late-game run against a worn-down defense, Jamal Lewis last week and Mike Anderson yesterday. If that artificially inflates the final totals, it does so in a good way.

* "Separation Saturday'' actually lived up to its contrived-by-ESPN billing. The only outright dog game was USC-Nebraska. Worth noting: "The U'' is looking more like "the u'' these days ... The ACC suddenly seems wide open, which should slightly encourage the Terps, who are still sewing up the cleats marks Steve Slaton left on their jerseys Thursday ... Imagine what Clemson could be if it had a kicking game ... Louisville hasn't looked this good since Never-Nervous Pervis Ellison played there ... My Heisman ballot today would have Troy Smith and Slaton 1-2, but it's early ... Can't imagine Ty Willingham enjoyed the Michigan-Notre Dame final too much ... Does the replay official at the Oregon-Oklahoma game go on full scholarship now? ... Wait a minute, Slaton just scored again ... The SEC is so much better than every other conference in the country, it's not even funny ... I'd make a crack about how the Raiders or Redskins would do in the Big East, but the Big East looks good all of a sudden.

Posted by David Steele at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
                    

A couple of observations, roughly 24 hours after the Ravens completed one of the more thorough ass-whippings they've administered in a while ...

At BWI this morning, at the baggage claim where dozens of fans and a handful of media types were waiting, a trio of baggage handlers were killing time by tossing around a toy football, having more fun that anyone should be having at 10 in the morning on a Monday at BWI. One of our colleagues from another paper noted, "It didn't take much to get people fired up about football.''

My reply: "They're sure not tossing a baseball around, and it's probably been a while since they did.''

That theme was highlighted when I got home and checked the emails. Along with the reactions to the Ravens' rout, there were a fair amount from Orioles fans who had thrown in the towel. A couple of them reveled in the fact that the Orioles' loss on Sunday mathematically eliminated them from playoff contention. Not that this is an unusual occurrence - that makes it nine wonderful years in a row - and not that we were running a magic number on the front page of the Sun sport section, but it's interesting that fans took specific note of it this year. As for magic numbers, it's two for the Orioles to clinch a ninth straight losing season as well.

One reader, Joe Cierniak of Glen Burnie, has had it, if this letter to the Sun sports editor (and to all the columnist) is any indication:

"As we  approach the ending of a ninth losing season in a row the Oriole
organization  becomes something far worse than disgusting...the word is
uninteresting, with  boring running a close second.  My suggestion is that any article 
about the Orioles, rather than being included in the sports section, should 
appear in the Help Wanted, For Sale, or Obituaries sections of the Sun.''

Again, not that this is a stunning revelation or anything, but the proof just keeps rolling in that the Orioles are killing the national pastime in historically one of its most loyal outposts. An NFL team that went 6-10 last year is once again snatching the city's hearts, based on one lopsided win.

Posted by David Steele at 4:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
                    

Look what has popped up on Comcast this morning, with no warning. Something called the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network - or "MASN,'' as they've dubbed it. I'd heard rumors about it for a couple of years but I never expected to actually see it. But there it is, on channel 62 on Baltimore's system, right between Fox News Channel and E!

And with the Orioles and Nationals now available, what better neighbor on the channel listings to have than E! Thank you, drive home safely, please tip your waiter.

Speaking of the O's, you've got to love the ads for the Yankees series: "AL East Showdown.'' What's better than a "showdown'' between teams separated by 22 1/2 games with three weeks to go?

Posted by David Steele at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

Mike Krzyzewski doesn't like the NBA age limit, according to the Charlotte Observer.

"There are a lot of successful people in this country who didn't go to college," Krzyzewski said [to the paper after returning from the World Championships]. "They should be given the right to do that. We have one of the richest men in the world (Bill Gates) who didn't finish college, giving away hundreds of millions of dollars. To me, I'd rather have it the way it was (with no age limit)."

Coach K also cited Michelle Wie as proof of the unfairness of the policy, and added: "The college game is going to be OK no matter what. I think this puts the college game in more of harm's way than it needs to be."

Wow.

This has to be what the college shills feared most about his Team USA assignment. He's with the pros all of one month, and he goes off-message.

Dare I say that I'm seeing the old teacher-of-young-men-who-happen-to-play-basketball in a new light?

Dare I also say that it's amazing how little play this has gotten so far today? All the major sports sites have Kobe's comments on Team USA on their home pages, and Ralph Sampson going to jail isn't hard to find, either. But you have to dig in those sections for this startling revelation from the most prominent coach at his level, and one of the most prominent at any level - you know, the coach of the national team. I found it on True Hoop, which is exactly what the title says it is.

Does Coach K have an agenda with this? Is there some issue bubbling below the surface he's hinting at? Is it some sort of ploy for leverage, maybe to keep the NBA available as a viable option? Maybe you can't rule it out. But the basketball world has been marching in lockstep for a while about the benefits of giving those young naive lads a taste of education, a year of maturity, that would benefit the game at the college level and the pros. This, to me, seems like a significant break with the ranks.

Hmmmmmm.

Posted by David Steele at 2:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

Loved every word of John Eisenberg's skeptical look at the so-called "successful'' season Major League Baseball is having, despite the continued mound of evidence and speculation about steroids.

Almost every word. Except these: "How about making sure Barry Bonds doesn't have a place to play in 2007 so he won't make a run at Hank Aaron's all-time home run record? (Will each individual club owner hold firm on just saying no to Bonds? Let's hope so.)"

Sorry. I say, let's hope not. Let's hope that in such desperate times for the game's reputation and the reputation of one of its most honorable players ever, that we don't get that desperate.

And please, this is not a knock at a Sun columnist colleague, because it's an idea that has sprouted far and wide the past few weeks. Among those touting it is the Philly Daily News's John Smallwood, a fellow Terp alum and Black Explosion (the black student newspaper) alum. No, say it ain't so.

Now, granted, I'm the one who wrote in Sunday's Points After that if Bonds gets any closer to Hank, I'd go out to the ballpark and throw syringes at him myself. Suffice it to say that I'll be sick to my stomach if his bloated self passes the legit home-run king, after the way Aaron has been overlooked and disrespected from the moment he approached the record and in the 32 years since he passed it.

But the idea that cheating is the only way to rein in a cheater, that really bothers me. Baseball has sold itself out already by letting the situation come to this in the first place. So the solution is to compound the sellout by selling out your principles even further by colluding and conspiring to blackball Bonds before he reaches Aaron?

At some point, somebody involved in this pathetic display has to show some integrity. Baseball has no moral leg to stand on when it comes to trying to punish a player who took advantage of the lawlessness the game itself allowed to grow unchecked. It apparently hasn't dawned on anybody in the baseball hierarchy that maybe it's going to have to take its medicine on this one, just swallow the truth that they created the environment in which all their records - hitting, pitching, individual awards, World Series - are going to be tainted, that their own greed and hubris put control of their most sacred numbers in the hands of people like Bonds, McGwire and Palmeiro, not to mention Canseco, Giambi and Caminiti. Tough break, but it's all your fault, and you'll have to deal with it for eternity, just like in those old Twilight Zone episodes.

It can go down the path of underhanded, backdoor collusion only if it no longer cares about its own credibility, or if it figures that its remaining "fans'' will fall for anything if it's bought this fake version of the game so far.

What really hurts is that we media, who are supposed to stand for what's right, are buying into the scam. Well, not everybody: Gregg Doyel of CBSSportsline.com doesn't. Very nice, Gregg.

If baseball and the 30 owners follow through on this suggested fix, then I can just say it here: I'm through with this stupid sport.  If that's the national pastime, then I feel sorry for the nation.

Posted by David Steele at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

I'd like to say I just finished watching Andre Agassi say farewell to competitive pro tennis, but I watched it an hour ago, then couldn't get online to comment on it because my DSL is out. They're checking on it. They say they are. I trust them.

Anyway, as I was listening to the ovation from the U.S. Open crowd in Flushing - it had to go on nonstop for nearly 10 minutes, paused briefly while Benjamin (No Relation To Boris) Becker praised Andre, started up again, paused occasionally while Andre stammered tearfully through his goodbye speech, then re-started again - I thought: I used to hate this guy. Now I'm getting choked up that he's leaving. I've been rooting for him for a number of years just like everybody else. I've grown to admire him and what he stands for. I've marveled at how he's matured publicly.

In short, he's become the opposite of what he once was, or at least what he once was perceived to be. So I wondered this, and please weigh in if you have an answer:

What other athletes have you gone from hating to loving during the course of his or her career? Not after that career ended, or when he joined your team, of after you met him personally and felt guilty about hating because he was nice to you. Someone who, early on, made you sick at the very sight of him, who you loved to ridicule and who was the perfect villain, who made it easy to hate. Yet, something changed, maybe in you but more in him, and you ended up being a huge fan.

Agassi is the only athlete I can think of that did that for me. A lot of the players and athletes for whom I nurtured hatred growing up - you know, various Cowboys and Celtics and Tar Heels and the like - I clung to that hatred even though it was pretty childish. (There's nothing to dislike about Roger Staubach, for instance, but if you're a kid and a Redskins fan, what else are you supposed to do?) Others I did grow to admire mainly because my earlier hatred was childish in itself and because I actually did the maturing (Larry Bird, for one).

But this would be like Barry Bonds or Kobe Bryant, just to name a couple off the top of my head, becoming a beloved figure late in life, because they drastically altered either the way they truly were, or the way they conducted themselves in public, or they corrected some chronic personality or character flaw. Agassi, for one, came off as the biggest phony on the planet in the early years, and it actually made you mad when he won, because it seemed to validate something wrong in the world. But yesterday, it actually hurt to see him lose and to see him bawling into his towel as the applause rang in his ears.

It's more likely that it goes in the other direction: athletes that become more insufferable later in life once the gloss of their image wears off. Mark McGwire might not be the perfect example, but he was a lot more beloved before than he is now. If Brett Favre stays on the path he's on now, selfishly hanging on and keeping the franchise on hold, making veiled accusations about his teammates, sticking his nose into their business and chucking interceptions as if he gets a bonus for each one, he'll be in that territory before long. Same for Roger Clemens if he pulls that overpay-me-for-half-a-season scam one more time - but then again, I can't say I ever was a huge fan of his. And I definitely was more of a fan of Karl Malone early in his career than late. Hard to explain. It's all a very individual thing. Heck, plenty of people never hated Barry or Kobe, so the aforementioned examples don't even apply to them.

Seriously, though, is there another athlete that has played the Agassi role? You hated the mere mention of his name in the beginning but completely changed your mind, and you missed him terribly in the end. Let me know.

Posted by David Steele at 4:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
                    

Double meaning with that headline.

For one, it's finally, mercifully, the end of the Ravens preseason. That was nerve-wracking. The whole fear of a serious injury occurring in that last game permeated the whole first quarter - but so did the idea that the offense was going to look bad again.

Everybody could breathe a sigh of relief at the end, though. Say what you will about that touchdown drive being bailed out by an uncharacteristically boneheaded penalty by a Joe Gibbs-coached team - when the Redskins had 12 men on the field for that field goal, it was if it was a set formation; they couldn't even claim confusion about which players and unit was supposed to be out there - but the Ravens capitalized on it. No, it didn't look particularly good that the Ravens would otherwise have stalled out and were trying a very long Matt Stover field goal. But it looked good that they converted the fourth-and-inches, and that they got a pretty hook-up between Steve McNair and Mark Clayton for the touchdown. Great that McNair can make that throw and that Clayton - who was creeping close to gaining a "fragile'' reputation earlier in camp - can make that kind of catch.

Remember, the Ravens still haven't had all their offensive starters on the field at the same time. They apparently will in Tampa next week. Even if they haven't been together to mesh in a preseason game, in various combinations they have meshed relatively well. If they could move against the 'Skins first-team defense, they ought to be able to have a respectable showing against Tampa Bay's excellent D. Ought to.

As for the Redskins - good Lord. All I can say about that offense is, they look as bad as they did in the first couple of weeks last season under Mark Brunell - until Brunell, with absolutely no warning, went crazy in the final minutes of the Cowboys game, and they pretty much rolled from there. They'd better do the same once the real games start.

Now, the second meaning of "The End ... the U.S. basketball team. Remember that rant from a couple of days ago about all the haters rooting against the U.S.? It's not so much that they're justified this morning (no, they're not). It's that the team gave them so much material this morning against Greece. OK, Greece apparently is pretty good, even though its best players are NBA prospects and former draft picks, not current NBA players. Greece has been a building power in Europe for a few years. But c'mon. From late in the second quarter this morning until the end of the third, they hit 23 out of 28 shots. From all over the court, too, long distance, post-ups, drives down the lane by big men and small. What the hell?

Here's what you have to keep in mind about what happened. One, even with all the talk about how this was a new format of putting the team together, their preparation for the World Championships was almost identical to past years - invite players, practice for a few weeks, play a handful of exhibitions, and within just a few weeks, play for a world title. Technically this is the very beginning of the process, and the payoff this time is supposed to be 2008 in Beijing, so maybe they should get a pass on this loss.

But they looked once again like a team that was slapped together on the fly. This was supposed to be an agile, versatile team - but Greece's best big man, the one they called Baby Shaq, beat up on them. All of a sudden, the U.S. looked weak inside, borderline soft. Yet they also got worn out from the outside, which makes you wonder why there were no real pure shooters on the roster. (Did they miss Gilbert Arenas? Gilbert thinks so.) And their halfcourt defense stunk.

So, bottom line ... is it the players' fault? They do what they do, and they did it within a short time span. A lot of key players - Arenas, Kobe, Chauncey Billups included - weren't there but will be there in 2008.

Think real hard, then, about Jerry Colangelo, architect of this grand scheme, who appears to have done no better a job picking the roster than the committee did in Athens. And Mike Krzyzewski, who was considered the savior, but might not get them as far as Larry Brown did two years ago, considering the U.S. meets Argentina for the bronze. Coach K was chosen ahead of dozens of coaches with NBA and international experience - but, you know, NBA coaches don't really coach, they babysit, right? Pat Riley and Gregg Popovich and Phil Jackson and Mike D'Antoni, who are they in comparison to Coach K?

Colangelo and Coach K might very well point the team in the right direction by the time they get to the Olympics, but there is nothing encouraging about this start.

Posted by David Steele at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)